CAUSE FOR DIVORCE – Wife Divorces All-Day Sucker (May, 1942)

William Steig wrote two of my favorite books as a child, Cdb! and Cdc?. Both are books of illustrated word puzzles and a ton of fun. Of course he’s probably most famous for writing Shrek!.

CAUSE FOR DIVORCE – Wife Divorces All-Day Sucker

by Wm. Steig

Mrs. Estelle Whamp sued her husband, Ernest, for divorce today on the ground that he was more devoted to lollipops than to her. She testified that he carried them wherever he went, licking them noisily at home, on the street, in his office, at the movies, and, worst of all, before her friends.

“I’m simply mortified every time I give a bridge party” she declared. “Ernest always comes in grinning and licking a lollipop like a ten-year-old. The girls look at me as though I had married a moron.”

Mrs. Whamp added that she had tried to break her husband of the habit, but it was no use. “I don’t know why they call them all-day suckers,” she sighed. “I’ve known him to finish six between breakfast and dinner.”

Mr. Whamp readily admitted his addiction to lollipops, but it was Mrs. Whamp who got in the last licks.